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Welcome to eWillys.com, a website for vintage jeep enthusiasts. I update this website nearly every day with jeep deals, jeep history, interesting reader projects, jeep related info, and more.
These quick searches can help you find things on eBay. People list in the wrong categories all the time, so don't be surprised to see brochures in the parts area for example. This section used to be split into jeeps, parts and other categories, but recent changes to eBay will require this information to be recoded.
The links to posts below show jeeps grouped by models, condition, and other ways. Some of these jeeps are for sale and others have been sold. If you are unsure whether a vehicle is still for sale or not, email me at d [at] ewillys.com for more info.
There are plenty of interesting, unusual, historic and surprising stories related to Jeeps and their owners. In addition, some of these features have nothing to do with jeeps. This link will display all featured stories starting from the latest.
Looking for parts and not sure where to go? There are a variety of large and small new and used parts sellers both online and offline.
Importantly, the allure of buying a project jeep can be romantic. The reality of restoring a jeep can be quite different, expensive and overwhelming without the right tools and resources. So, tread carefully when purchasing a "project". If you have any concerns about buying a vintage jeep, or run across a scam, feel free to contact me for help, comments or concerns .
I don’t know anything about this particular jeep except that it is called the “Dixie Flyer”. It seems to be a modified MB with a ‘Courier’ sign in the front and some modifications to the fenders. It also appears to have a gas tank on the passenger side (I think that is what is sticking down under the passenger?). I found this image on the European Center of Military History’s Blog.
This MB is located at the Cole Land Transporation Museum in Bangor, Maine, and has an interesting history. According to the museum’s website, “his 1945 jeep served with the U.S. Army during World War II in Europe. After the war, it was given to the French government (French nomenclature in still on the dashboard). It was rebuilt by the French, declared surplus, and shipped to Duryea Motors, Brockport, New York in 1982. Galen Cole purchased it for display in the Museum.
Perhaps its greatest claim to fame is that the mold for the Maine World War II Veterans Memorial, located on the Museum’s grounds, was formed around this jeep; therefore, the jeep that is the focus of the Memorial is an exact replica of this jeep. It was chosen as the symbol of WWII because personnel of all branches of the service during that war used jeeps-whether generals, admirals, or privates.”
I spent some time search for Jeeps in Museums today. I discovered that in 1996 a museum with some wwII jeeps closed and the jeeps were purchased and sent to Indiana. After a little searching, I am pretty sure these were bought by the National Automotive and Truck Museum of the United States (NATMUS), located in Auburn, Indiana. This appears to be a pretty sizeable museum with a great collection of both stock and modified vehicles.
Sorting through images at different sites, I did eventually find an image of a GP (to be published later) located at NATMUS. I sent them an email to see if I can get additional images and information (my emails to museums thus far have proven useless so far, with the exception of a gracious and quick response from the York Museum in PA).
One additional item I discovered while searching through some NATMUS images was this modified Willys Truck hidden in the background of a pic focused on the Popcorn Wagon (see pic to right). Fortunately, I could identify the website emblazoned on the windshield and, viola, I found some great pics of this vehicle to share.
This truck, called Silly Willy, was built by Wild Fire Manufacturing for 1st Attack (Jeffrey Cook is president of both companies). 1st Attack is a company that specializes in the development of offroad emergency vehicles. You might know Jeffrey Cook from his days as owner/driver of the Monster Truck War Wagon that toured nationally.
Here’s some pics of Silly Willy:
Gerald found this great old cartoon. I always thought jeeps had minds of their own …
It was 25 years ago this winter … ouch .. has it really been that long ago … that I decided to join a small group on a bicycle journey of the South Island of New Zealand. I was only 20, the youngest member of a troupe that ranged from little ol’ me all the way up to a couple who was 55 (and an adorable, long married, in-love couple they were). Over a period of 3 weeks we hiked, biked, helicoptered, jet-boated, trained, vanned, laughed, talked and drank (well, some of us more than others) our way around the south island of New Zealand. For a pretty sheltered kid of 20, it was an eye opening experience.
I certainly can’t forget New Years Night, 1985, in the tourist town of Queensland, where many people around my age gathered in the town square. Everyone wandering around, hugging, kissing and meeting people from all over the world. For a dorky geek like me, it was a temporary slice of heaven as I got to mack with some good looking women. One beautiful young woman from Vancouver and I got along particularly well and …. ahem … back to our story ….
When the 3 week trip in New Zealand was over, and we were all stuffed with Ice Cream (best on the planet — but their cones sucked!), meat pies (these were soooo good), and stories, most of us adventurers returned home; however, the two ‘guides’ who organized the trip spent the next month or two wandering the Australian Outback in a vehicle they bought in Australia. Several months later, one of the two guides, Brock, tracked me down in the San Juan Islands (I was working up there as a chef). He told me that some day I HAD to go to the outback of Australia and see the stars. He told me that the Outback was truly a unique experience and though we had seen many many stars in New Zealand (very little light pollution there), going to the Outback was even better.
To date, I haven’t made it back to New Zealand nor have I made it to Australia. I haven’t even broken the southern hemisphere since that trip. However, since then I’ve always lusted for Australia.
So, it was with great interest that I have cultivated a new friend from Australia named Hein who recently stumbled upon eWillys. Hein is originally from South Africa and has lived, worked and traveled over much of Africa, Australia and Southeast Asia. Recently, he took a 3 week jeep vacation into the Outback with his wife and daughter and took some photos for us (well, probably for themselves, too 🙂 ). I’ll be publishing the story of the trip in his jeep in the next couple days. In the meantime, one the interesting side stories of the trip involved meeting the Camel Man.
The Camel Man
Hein writes, “I would have loved to spend more time with the Real Camel-man, but it was too early in the day and we were going in opposite directions. Apparently he worked in the mines, oil and gas industry for many years, of which there is plenty out there believe it or not, and just got fed-up with the constant rat-race after money. That old fellow has been doing circuits of the desert for more than a decade with that contraption, at 20 km a day and no towns for up to 800 km in some stretches, can you imagine that life?
I suspect the little van might have had a motor in it initially. When that gave up the ghost he just reverted to a more reliable source of motivation. In parting I actually told him that I might just come and join him in another decade perhaps? I am sure he has a few choice stories to tell and I could really enjoy listening to them while the camels plodded along or over a few camp-fires.”
Based on Hein’s description, I managed to find a couple blog websites which record other run-ins with the Camel Man. They noted he wore a special mosquito mask to keep the flies off and he also had one for his dog, though Hein never mentions seeing the dog. So, on your next trek through the Outback, keep your eyes pealed for this one-of-a-kind traveler. Thanks Hein!
Here’s Hein’s photo:
This photo is from Rod Thomas’s blog:
This image is from Flemming Bo Jensen’s blog:
Tommy emailed me this unusual build (note it is a car and not a jeep or 4×4). After a little searching, I found this on ebay as well. If you haven’t seen some of the wooden jeeps featured over the years on ewillys, check them out. For a really fast wooden car, check out this supercar.
According to the email, it is a wooden body built in 2009. “This custom wooden car rides on a 1986 Toyota truck frame and gets power from a Chrysler 318 engine. It is driven by an automatic transmission and has merely 1,800 miles on its speedometer. The whole body is made of cedar and its interior is just as over-the-top as the exterior.”
You can see many more pics of this on ebay
Based on the below news report, August of 1950 was the very first crossing of the Naches Trail by the Yakima Ridge Runners. This information resides on the Nachestrail.org website.
Something I didn’t know about this first crossing was that the jeepers had to use winches to drop their jeeps over the cliff on the west side, just as pioneers had done almost 100 years before (well, they used freshly made cowhide ropes instead of winches).
Note that in transcribing this article into PDF form, the transcriber couldn’t identify everything, so there are a few uncomplete hiccups in the text.
Though the article includes no images, only 9 months later many of these same folks and their jeeps would be photographed by Life Magazine playing in the Yakima Valley hills, sagebrush and mud (included below). You can see all the pics from that here.
Jeeps Follow Trail Carved by Naches Pass Emigrants
08-15-50
By Ted Van Arsdol, Yakima Daily Republic
Ninety-seven years after the first wagon train crossed Naches Pass through the trackless Cascades, 11 Yakima jeep drivers, members of the Ridge Runner club, have completed the same rugged journey.
The jeep caravan returned here yesterday after following the forest-grown trail across the mountains. The jeep riders lowered their vehicles by chains and a winch down the steep face of a cliff on the west side. It was on this same cliff that pioneers of 1853 were forced to dismantle their wagons and lower them by ropes.
W R. (Wally) Klingele, one of the Ridge Runners making the trip said. The group could still see traces of the old wagon trails and the ancient cuts on trees that probably were made by the pioneers. He said there were also grooves on the west side cliff made by the sliding covered wagons.
First Four-Wheel Repeaters
“I believe our trip over the old road was the first one made by four-wheeled vehicles since the pioneer trek,” Klingele said. He had heard of motorcycles going over Naches pass, but doesn’t believe they went down the face of the cliff as the jeeps did.
Members of the Ridge Runners who made the trip were Chet Thompson, Dale Rohn, ___ Golsh, Gordon Buckley, Harlan Beckett, Lyle Christopherson, __ King, Bob Schultz, Pat Mullins and Klingele. Roger Gervais, jeep club initiate, also made the mountain trek.
The group had gone into the [?pass] one week ago from Timothy meadows to Government meadows. They left Saturday from the mouth of American river, went about seven miles by road to Jungle creek camp and then journeyed on by jeep trail to Timothy meadows.
Had to Carve Road
They camped overnight at Timothy meadows and started at [??] am Sunday on the trip through the woods. It took 11 hours for the caravan to cover the 10 miles to the pioneer cliff. The drivers had to cut and clear a road using shovels and axes.
To reach the bottom of the cliff on the other side, the Ridge Runners hooked one jeep to a tree by a chain, and the man in the jeep used a winch to lower other vehicles down the cliff. [?] used a crank to unwind the winch, while the other Ridge Runners worked with the jeep being lowered to make sure it didn’t go astray.
The 150 foot dropoff was steeply sloped but had a number of ledges. It took 2 1⁄2 hours to lower all the jeeps. The toughest part of the trip came at the end. Yakima’s jeep club spent eight hours covering a mile and a half of the most rugged sort of mountain terrain. The foliage was heavy and many fallen rocks and logs hampered their machines.
After 21 hours on the trail the Road Runners reached Hines forest camp on the west side at 3 yesterday. They covered just 14 miles from the end of the trail at Timothy meadows to the forest camp.
Buttercup has come home again. Here is the story as told by Buttercup’s current steward.
William writes, “I would like to introduce you to “BUTTERCUP” a 1946 CJ2A. My father “Skip” Taylor bought her in 1973 for $150.00 and brought her out to our family house on Clarks Island in Plymouth Mass.
Out there he put plywood floors in, added yellow paint(out of a can) and named her Buttercup after a cow that was once on the property. For 20 years she was our tractor and stuff hauler. I learned to drive her when I was 10. Sometime in the 80’s Skip added the wire wheels and had a trailer built. By 1990 it was decided that she was getting tired and was replaced by a John Deer tractor.
After a while she was sold to a gentleman with the agreement that my father would get “right of first refusal” if she was ever put up for sale. Well, 3 winters ago that man kept his word and sold Buttercup (painted red) back to us with new floors and a rebuilt original motor.
She is now back on the island, going back together once again. She has new brakes, a tune up, the wire wheels(off a 35 ford) and her bright yellow paint (out of a can). Buttercup is running great and driving the property cleaning up branches and taking the kids out for rides. She is a part of our family and hope to keep her going for another sixty years.”
I asked William about the wire wheels and he said his father had the centers of some jeep rims cut out and welded into the 35 ford rims. Not road safe but good for an island.
Here are some pics of Buttercup. Thanks for sharing William!
I found this image at the halfcenturyofprogress blog. I thought it was a cool pic. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone knew who this was ….
Continuing with yesterday’s e-jeep, while not a 4wd vehicle, this eco-motor jeep look-a-like appears inspired by the CJ-5. According to ecofriend.org, “The Fun retails for $24,995, though they have an introduction price of $19,995, and can deliver a top speed of 70mph and an operating range of about 100 miles between charges. The vehicle uses the customizable MiMod EV monitoring system from EV Instruments, which is an integrated system of sensors, monitoring logic and operational controls that can be customized to suit any type of EV.”
Here is the website for Eco Motors and the Fun. The company appears to be located in Springfield, Mo.
